Journalist assaulted in Montenegro

VIENNA, 8 January 2014 – The South East
Europe Organisation (SEEMO), an affiliate of the
International Press Institute (IPI), today condemned the
latest physical attack on a journalist in Montenegro.

On the evening of 3 January in the town of Niksic, an
unknown assailant attackeddaily newspaper Dan
correspondent Lidija Nikcevic in the street, repeatedly
striking her in the head with a stick causing injuries that
required hospitalisation.

“We demand that
authorities – including the police, the state prosecutor
and the courts –immediately open an investigation into
this incident,” SEEMO Secretary General Oliver Vujovic
said. “Further, we call on the prime minister and the
president of Montenegro, as well as the president of
Parliament, to use all powers available to them to support
an investigation in this case and in all other cases of
attacks on and threats against journalists and media
companies in Montenegro in recent years.”

He
added: “This case is only the latest in a string of
numerous incidents. In most cases, the perpetrators or the
masterminds of the attacks have not been arrested.
High-level officials in Podgorica have promised SEEMO
representatives during meetings that the Montenegrin state
will use its full power to stop attacks on journalists and
to support investigations in unsolved cases. However, we
still have no results.”

Attacks on or threats
against journalists in Montenegro in past years include:

-2013: someone threw a stone at the
window of commercial TV station Montena in Podgorica on 30
December. Four days earlier, a bomb exploded under windows
of the office of daily Vijesti’s editor-in-chief,
Mihailo Jovovic. The explosion damaged the building, but did
not injure Jovovic or the more-than-15 other Vijesti
staff members who were there at the time.

On 11
August, a device exploded in front of the home of
Montenegrin journalist Tufik Softic in the town of Berane.
Softic, a local correspondent for Vijesti, was at
home with his family at the time. The incident was not the
first attack on Softic: on 1 November 2007, two individuals
beat and injured him in front of his home. Softic at that
time was working for Radio Berane and as a local
correspondent for the dailyRepublika.

-2012: someone attacked Olivera Lakic,
an investigative reporter with Vijesti, on 12 March
at the door of her apartment building, hitting her several
times in the head. Lakic was hospitalised following the
attack. Lakic and her daughter also received serious threats
one year earlier while Lakic was conducting an investigation
into organised crime and tobacco.

-2011: two clearly marked Vijesti
company cars were set ablaze on 14 July. Another car
belonging to the daily was torched on July 23 and then a
fourth on 27August.

-2010: Zeljko
Ivanovic, one of Vijesti’s founders, and several
other journalists received death threats by post in
September containing statements such as: “It is over, you
are next”.

-2009: the mayor of
Podgorica and his son attacked Mihailo Jovovic and Boris
Pejovic, a Vijesti daily photojournalist, on 6 August
as they documented the men’s improper parking of vehicles
in the town. The mayor’s son reportedly threatened the
journalists with a gun and Jovovic was treated at a hospital
for a head injury.

-2008: sports
journalist Mladen Stojovic was severely beaten in his
apartment in Bar, a port town less than a 100 kilometres
south of Podgorica on 23 May. Stojovic suffered numerous
fractures and required surgery. He suffered amnesia for four
days. Some analysts speculated that the attack might have
been connected to his reporting on the alleged fixing of
soccer matches.

-2007: in
September, several assailants physically attacked Vijesti
founder Zeljko Ivanovic near a restaurant where the
newspaper was celebrating its 10th anniversary. Ivanovic was
injured and received medical treatment. Although the
perpetrators of the attack were identified, the masterminds
remain at large.

-2006: masked
assailants attacked Jevrem Brkovic, a leading novelist in
Montenegro,on 24 October. Brkovic’s driver, Srdjan
Vojicic, was also shot dead in the centre of Podgorica.

-2004: the founder and editor-in-chief
of Dan, Dusko Jovanovic, was killed in a drive-by
shooting in Podgorica in the night between 27 and 28 May in
front of his office building. The masterminds of the killing
have not been
identified.

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